The last version of the RPC plugin for lightwave is only compatible with Lightwave 9.2 and below...

Is there an alternative to Archvision RPC for putting hundreds of people and trees arround and inside a stadium?

It is possible to use the new instancing system with something similar to RPC.

I need apploading peoples to fill a stadium...

Thanks :)

:question:

archijam

01-02-2012, 01:34 AM

Good question!

biliousfrog

01-02-2012, 02:14 AM

I'm not familiar with the plugin you mention but HD Instance would do it, DP Instance might be able to (haven't tried it) and I'd hope that the native instancing could also do it. As ever, the issue is not populating the scene as much as rendering all the extra geometry but it's less of a problem with modern CPU's and large amounts of RAM.

JamesCurtis

01-02-2012, 10:43 AM

DP Instance should be able to do it. I've used points placed in various positions to instance an object. The only catch is that the duplicates are exact copies of the original one color wise. Size can be randomly modified though, and any animation to the main original would be duplicated across the instances. At least this has been the case in my tests of it so far.

Check the DPinstance thread at http://forums.newtek.com/showthread.php?t=112544

Photogram

01-02-2012, 02:56 PM

Thanks :)

I'm not realy worry about how i will do the instancing..

I was thinking at RPC for it's ability to render people and trees in motion and composed directly in my render.

If i cannot use rpc or something that can do that job i will have no choice to do this in after effects with a lot more renders for geometry mask and that will be more tough to manage with relatively short deadlines...

If at least i can find apploading poeple on green screen or alpha i will be able to map them on flat polygons with rotation driven to always face the camera then use lw11 instancing if it work like i need.

Photogram

01-02-2012, 03:19 PM

I have to produce an animation similar to the Marseille stadium

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspRyvDzbtM

biliousfrog

01-03-2012, 02:19 AM

The problem with using photo/video on polys is that they will look very weird as the camera passes. With HDI you could create a single person, animate the applause, instance it throughout the stadium then apply random colour to the clothing and skin (from a selected range) and offset the animation. You can also create several characters or buy from axyz or daz.

prometheus

01-03-2012, 04:35 AM

Perhaps order the LW pre-realese if you can, and use the instance generator there, wich will let you specify different rotations, sizes,color.

Then you need some trees..search around fro free ones or get x-frog for example.
Perhaps contact someone that can export out a good tree, perhaps for some fee.

x-frog has some free librarys of around 130 trees, in lwo format if you need, complety with textures and transparency maps, works with LW 11 instancing.

http://xfrog.com/130-free-xfrogplants-now-available/

http://xfrog.com/product/X-05.html

There´s also sumatra wich is very promising, and it has some bonus content with trees, or you could probably use some x-frog trees too, wich are in lwo format.

http://svenart.de/sumatra_about.htm

Unfortunatly x-frog plugin for lightwave has stopped it seems and are only available for some other software as a plugin.

For a more of your own design, try tree designer.
http://www.polas.net/trees/index.php
Michael

Photogram

01-03-2012, 03:18 PM

I have lw 11 pre-release and i will learn and test the instancing as soon as possible...

I know i can animate a 3d character and instance it but my goal is to be able to render that architectural animation with the minimum render time.. ( 2 minutes max with about 600 people in the stadium )

if i use geometry people with animated bones or morphing i think it will take more time to render than if i use one flat polygon for each people.

thank you for your ideas are very appreciated and i will certainly post how i finally done it in about 45 days if i get that contract...

biliousfrog

01-04-2012, 02:04 AM

I have lw 11 pre-release and i will learn and test the instancing as soon as possible...

I know i can animate a 3d character and instance it but my goal is to be able to render that architectural animation with the minimum render time.. ( 2 minutes max with about 600 people in the stadium )

if i use geometry people with animated bones or morphing i think it will take more time to render than if i use one flat polygon for each people.

thank you for your ideas are very appreciated and i will certainly post how i finally done it in about 45 days if i get that contract...

You might find it difficult to keep the render times that low with clip-mapped people, I'm not very knowledgeable about the technical side of LW's render engine but it can slow down sometimes when using lots of overlapping clipped polys. It can also create rendering artifacts such as flickering. The people themselves will be very small in the frame so low-poly people should be quite manageable and would be my preferred way of doing it if the camera is moving past the people.

archijam

01-04-2012, 02:08 AM

I have to produce an animation similar to the Marseille stadium

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sspRyvDzbtM

You know that was done in LW, by mir.no ?

In this interview they say they used HD Instances.

http://www.ronenbekerman.com/interview-with-mir/

and:

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/61655-mir-august-11-2010-a.html

Photogram

01-04-2012, 01:14 PM

Wow Fantastic!!! archijam! thanks a lot you make my day!

I'm so happy now to believe that i can achieve all of this with our lovely Lightwave :)

I'm looking seriously at these articles ;)

Yeah!!!

Photogram

01-04-2012, 01:16 PM

So using HD instance is the way to go!

I'm still curious to take time to compare HD instance vs LW11 instancing...

Any of you have already tested their capabilities and limits?

archijam

01-04-2012, 01:21 PM

Glad to help :)

Notice that they used all types of people, from static, to mapped animated billboards, to 3D ..

I am sure those flags in the crowd were not being waved by models, that's for sure ;) ..

Phil

01-04-2012, 01:35 PM

So using HD instance is the way to go!

I'm still curious to take time to compare HD instance vs LW11 instancing...

Any of you have already tested their capabilities and limits?

I'm not sure that this could be discussed outside the beta area.

Chris V

01-25-2012, 08:03 AM

Hi all!

The last version of the RPC plugin for lightwave is only compatible with Lightwave 9.2 and below...

Is there an alternative to Archvision RPC for putting hundreds of people and trees arround and inside a stadium?

It is possible to use the new instancing system with something similar to RPC.

I need apploading peoples to fill a stadium...

Thanks :)

:question:

I was hoping to find an answer for this, too, as I have thousands of dollars of RPC Content (trees, shrubs, animated people, cars, etc) and now it doesn't work with LW10 or 11.

Photogram

01-28-2012, 10:17 AM

Hi the only way i found RPC to work is with Lightwave 9.0!

Tried many times to save and load with Lightwave any more recent version and Lightwave crash or render only one angle of the character..

I think the problem come from the RPC shader plugin

Chris V

02-01-2012, 12:47 PM

I had it working fine with LW9.6, but that doesn't help us wth 10 or 11Beta ;)